


Fire Sprite

by Tassledown



Category: Original Work
Genre: Arson, Blacksmithing, Body Horror, Creepy, F/F, Forest Fires, female blacksmith, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 20:24:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5019178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassledown/pseuds/Tassledown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solfrid grew up in fire country. It took her home when she was fifteen and never left her thoughts. She thought she could be happy with tame fires in the forge, but she never could find a way to sate her restlessness.</p><p>The fires of her youth contained something she desperately wanted to find again, but she wasn't sure it would come in the form she wanted. There was a fascination in the fire, the elementals in all their glory. But one cannot love an elemental without being consumed by them, and she isn't sure if that is what she wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire Sprite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RandomTiger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomTiger/gifts).



> My apologies in advance if you know more about blacksmithing than I do. Things were unsteady enough in the past two weeks I couldn't get in all the research this deserved, so there might be inaccuracies in what I include about the technical details thereof.
> 
> I hope this was what you had in mind when you asked for it!

Solfrid had been fifteen when she first saw the women in the fire. There'd been a wildfire raging up the hills from her home. The village had had to evacuate, but she'd watched the fire as they fled. All along the edges she'd seen them, dancing together with their hair whipping up the trunks of the trees and long limbs flashing as the fire crept towards the homes.

The images never left her mind. She dreamed about the dancers in the fire, about joining them, the flames caressing her limbs and drawing her closer until she ignited and became another dancer herself. Together with them, forever.

Her family moved to the city, after their village burned. Solfrid threw herself into learning a trade – one close to fire. Baking, first, then blacksmithing. She never learned to fear fire and would lose track of her work in the ovens. The baker called her a firesprite, because she always let the day's bread burn. Her fearlessness was of more use in the forge.

Her time in the forge was a pleasure and a joy. The cherry-red glow felt like a new accomplishment every day. It was more enjoyable to work with metals that bent before the flames than breads and pies that had to be rescued before they were finished. Before the fire was done with them. 

The big bellied furnace in the smithy danced for her. Sparks flew and flames birthed from split coals as she worked, and the air shimmered with heat around her. Her apron was decorated with burns, her hands and face with soot and she could breathe air that had, moments before, been on fire. Her heart and mind liked it; her fingers, not so much. She had scars from blisters along every finger and up her arms. She may have loved the fire, but it was not very loving back. 

Perhaps it should have been a sign, but she couldn't bring herself to pull away. 

When Solfrid became a journeyman, everyone encouraged her to travel, to find new work and new skills. She left the city with relief; the baker and her family had too long of memories. She was still known as a firesprite by them, and she wanted to leave the nickname – and the bad luck associated with it – behind. 

Along the way, she travelled past the inns, more often than not, to camp alone where she could build a fire pit and watch it burn. It wasn't the same as the furnaces at work – it was too small, too open, too weak – but it was familiar. She could fall asleep to the crackle of wood and wake to glowing coals the next day.

Outside the city once more, the dreams came back. She dreamed of dancing in the forest with a crown of gold, the soft hands of another woman, bright and hot and shimmering, held in her own. There was a sensuous beauty about it all and she couldn't shake the feeling she needed it. 

It hadn't occurred to her that most blacksmiths in smaller villages would have smaller furnaces. Solfrid tired quickly of trying to work with them, in cramped places choked with soot and barely enough room to move in. She tired, too, of cities without hills and ports, some of which were muggy and wet no matter what she tried. Others cities were so cramped with buildings she felt like they'd be much improved by a kiss of flame to open the valleys to the sky once more. 

Her temper grew short, trying to find somewhere to say, and she left the next city without even bothering to go back to her lodgings for her clothes. She packed her tools up and stalked away before the blacksmith could berate her for her wasting time at the furnace again, sick of his rules and standards and the dark street on which he lived.

Passing the edge of the city, there was a barn barely holding itself together on the edge of the field already plowed under for winter. Solfrid realized she still had the apron the blacksmith had given her on and jerked it over her head to toss it through the door. She didn't leave, not immediately. She wandered into the space and looked around. It was beautiful inside, empty of people and farm animals. She could hear a quiet coo of doves and scurry of mice overhead, but nothing else. The edges of the space pressed softly on her awareness, whispering that what she saw wasn't the entirety of what the space could be. 

After all, the barn was all wood.

She had a flint and steel in her bag. She climbed up into the loft, out of anyone's immediate sight. There was dregs of straw and hay in the corners, and birds nests – empty, this late in the season – tucked into the corners of the space. She gathered the bits together and lit them on fire on the wooden slats of the loft. 

For a minute, she feared the drafts might kill her fire before it could spread and then a gust bloomed the sparks into a tongue of fire, eagerly finding purchase along the floor. She backed up to the top of the ladder as it discovered it had no barriers and climbed back down to retreat towards the barn doors. 

The loft glowed beautifully above her. 

Solfrid stared at the loft from the barn door, wondering if they'd come. The fire was just a barn, after all. It had no purpose, no goals. There wasn't a great forest to consume, or metal to shape into something greater than itself. Perhaps it would be like the ovens; perhaps it was too tame, too controlled...

And then she saw a whip of hair stream down from the ceiling. Arms reached up to brace a body glowing yellow and orange at the top of the ladder, her head thrown back in a delighted laugh. The woman stretched and found the ladder, crouching to let herself down, her handprints burnt into the wood behind her.

When she stepped off it, the ladder broke under it's own weight, falling into pieces where her hands had eaten into the wood. The woman walked down the centre of the barn and stopped to pick up Solfrid's abandoned apron. The leather smouldered in her grip, but it was treated not to burn easily. The woman brought it to her face like she was taking Solfrid's smell off its surface and smiled at her by the barn door, where she stood, transfixed. 

Solfrid licked her lips and smiled. “I hope you enjoy it.”

The woman of fire smiled widely, closing her hand harder on the apron as it broke apart into blackened ash. “I will.” 

The fire came closer, crawling towards the door of the barn, and the woman walked with it. The heat dried Solfrid's face and she flinched from the memory of blisters on her hands. She took several steps back, out the barn door, and fled.

The barn glowed like a torch behind her. 

The dreams came more often. The furnaces no longer made her happy, because there was nothing in them – sparks and glowing heat, metals cherry red, but no beauty. No women glowing orange, with hair leaping towards the sky. She sometimes didn't stop at a village, even if there was a smithy; the thought of spending a night without a fire felt like such a loss.

She hadn't realized how very lonely she was, working in strange cities and strange towns. Part of her missed her family, but another part missed something more. Something that wasn't barely hidden disappointment she had no interest in marriage or children, or whispers she was a firesprite herself: one who caught the attention of elementals by their very nature.

All she could do was keep trying, hoping what she looked for would be in the next city... or the next... or the next. Hoping she might someday realize what it was she looked for.

Winter came, and travel grew harder. She was far enough north that there was snow on the ground, and sleeping in the open by a fire was impractical. In the next city, she was told she could go no further until the passes cleared or she travelled south again.

The city was another cramped port, and Solfrid considered leaving after a few weeks. It drew her down the road south on her day off and into the forest trails by the road. 

There was a cabin not far from the city. It was in good repair, surrounded by the trees and a stream on one side. The cupboards were empty, waiting for someone – a hunter, likely – to stop in for shelter. The flint and steel were in her pockets, but she made herself walk on, made herself keep looking even as she felt the ghost of heat on her shoulders. 

Snow coated everything else: snow that would turn into water when heated and snuff out even the best fires if it had not burned long enough to blast the snow into steam before it became water. The cabin would be warm and dry, with raised floorboards and a wooden shingled roof between her fire and melting snow.

There wasn't any other shelters in the woods for miles. Solfrid stopped outside the cabin on her way back, quietly furious with herself for considering it. She wasn't selfish. Not that selfish, not that lonely. 

Actually that lonely. 

The fire in the cabin burned slowly. The boards were healthier than that of the barn, less dry and with less loose material to burn. Solfrid had brought in branches to start the fire, and the heat had to dry the branches out before it could take, then melt the snow around the cabin and dry the roof before it could climb that high. Solfrid stood in the doorway, watching it spread across the floor and hoping it wouldn't snuff itself out.

Waiting.

The woman appeared not long after the fire spread into the far corner and opposite the door. She rose from the floor with a sigh and a stretch, her long arms stretched overhead. When she touched the roof, she flinched back with a slightly offended look at the wood. She stretched out again within the confines of the cabin and smiled at Solfrid. 

“It's so cold here,” the woman said. “You're a long way from home.”

“I know,” Solfrid whispered. “I'm sorry, I was lonely.”

The woman smiled and stepped closer. Solfrid held her ground and felt the heat on her face. Her eyes watered and dried, like having her face in front of the furnace and she shivered in place – not from cold, but eagerness. The woman pressed both hands to the frame of the door and smiled at her with a soft, pleased expression.

“I like seeing you,” she said softly. “I don't see women here... like this... enough.”

“I like seeing you, too.” Solfrid breathed. “I thought you'd only come in my dreams.”

“I will come for you one day.” The woman brushed her hand against Solfrid's hair, just shy of touching her face. “I would like to.”

“One day,” Solfrid closed her eyes and heard the wood around her groan. “I should go.”

The woman – the elemental – backed up and laughed, her hair rising to the ceiling as Solfrid could smell the wood begin to steam. Her laughter crackled and moaned and Solfrid broke from the cabin door moments before a chunk of roof crashed to the floor, spitting sparks and flame out the door. 

She went back to the city, breathless and terrified. Would she have let the woman touch her if the roof hadn't groaned? Would she have stepped away in time?

It became hard to feel alone in the forge after that. The fire laughed and crackled around her, and whenever she turned her back on the furnace it felt like it was watching her. She wasn't the only one; the owner of the forge started jumping more too, and periodically studied the fire as though she, too, felt there was something in it. By the time spring came around, before it was really all that warm, the woman who owned the forge opened all the windows and doors muttering about clearing the air. 

The feeling of being watched wasn't the only problem. Little fires started around the forge, in discarded rags, unattended piles of wood, and, memorably, in the store of coal. Solfrid's patron made exasperated noises and went to get the priest to study the forge, to no avail. 

Solfrid didn't dare say a word. The promise of the fire elemental haunted her, day and night, and she was afraid if she left the city the matter might leave her hands and simply take her. It was ridiculous – spring wasn't even fire season here – but the fear wouldn't leave her.

Worse, though, was her dreams. The dancing was no longer just dancing. The heat wasn't on her face and arms but in her stomach and breasts, and when she lay down to sleep she was filled with need that either persisted in her dreams or had to be satisfied before she could rest. Her scarred hands were tired from a day's work, but not tired enough to prevent her giving attention to herself. 

Fire seemed a mild word to describe it. 

Spring came on strong, and with it a land more wet than it had been all winter. Solfrid had no desire to cross the pass or return South. She avoided leaving the city, even though her dreams tormented her with fields and buildings going up in flames. She feared if she started another she wouldn't be able to bring herself to leave.

When she didn't bring it on herself, the fires came to her. A residential home went up, attributed to a chimney fire, then a ship in port. Three shops on the tailor's street burned and the city reported elementals spotted in the ruins as the buildings nearby remained untouched. Solfrid avoided the areas they had happened in, even as the descriptions refused to leave her mind.

She was retrieving fish for dinner when the next ship burned. A keg of gunpowder exploded and everyone in hearing rushed to the harbour; Solfrid was forced along with the crowd to avoid being trampled. She thought she wouldn't be able to see; surely the boat must've capsized from an explosion of that size, but that was not the case.

Two ships were burning now, one that had been trying to rescue the crew of the other, she suspected. Most people had jumped ship and swum to shore, but not everyone had made it. Not everyone was going to; not now. 

Elementals danced on the ships, three twining around the mast, others gracing the rails with their touch. Three had captured some of the sailors and were toying with them as they burned, entranced by the elementals that had stolen their minds. The mortals' clothing was blackened and flaking off their skin as the fire ate them alive. 

There should have been no way to tell them apart, but Solfrid knew in places too deep for words which elemental she had met before. It was the woman dancing with a yong women, pressed into her body as she ran her fingers over the ends of the woman's hair, burning it away in brief passes of her fingers. She bent down to kiss the sailor's neck and the woman's already dark skin grew darker before turning black – burnt past blisters by a single touch. 

Solfrid couldn't look away, not then. Not even as the ships collapsed onto the dock and went down at last. The city couldn't stop talking about it. Before long, the rumours became the question of if there was a fire sprite in the city. Solfrid did everything she could to avoid such discussions, becoming absorbed in her work. The blacksmith left her alone, and the only place fire got out of hand was in her dreams. 

The nights she spent so hot she couldn't seem to sate herself became interspersed with horrors of their embrace leaving her watching her skin blacken and crumble away.

Summer came, and came on dry. It was a burning summer, and Solfrid could barely sleep. She was not even two days from where her home had been before her family moved to the city, and she dreamed of the dancers on the hills, certain they were coming for her. 

She was transferring metal from the forge to the anvil one afternoon and missed. The glowing block struck the floor, bounced and fetched up against the coal by the wall. Reflexively, Solfrid reached for the metal barehanded. A bucket of ice cold water rained over her head and hands and she bolted upright with a gasp.

“What?” she gasped. Turning, she saw her patron watching her warily. 

“You need to go,” the blacksmith said. “Today.”

Solfrid stared back at the woman who had given her a home for almost half a year, longer than anyone else in her journeying. “What happened?”

“I can see it in your eyes,” she said simply. “I hear your nightmares. You need to go, before the fires start this summer. You'll only bring them here with you.”

“I wouldn't do that!” Solfrid insisted. Part of her quivered in terror, wondering how she could survive outside the city. Her skin felt dry and parched, but it was a dry summer after all. “I'm not...”

“You're not the first fire sprite I've met, child. Maybe if you're somewhere less dry you won't bring it down on them. If you're lucky, they'll leave you be if you avoid them long enough, but you can't do that here. Why don't you try going home?”

Home. The image came back to her, of the burning hills and the weeping. Her home had burned a long time ago. It wasn't that far away.

“Alright,” Solfrid said, before she could think. Before she could cry. “I'll go.”

She didn't have much to pack. She left the city with little fanfare, to no one's notice. 

It felt stupid carrying her tools with her, when she had no real use for them now. There was no point in a furnace anymore; it didn't contain what she wanted. She looked for somewhere to leave it, but nothing felt right. She didn't want to just leave it, she wanted it to burn. But if she brought the fire on herself, it would just bring what she feared.

She left the path going south and found the remains of the cabin she'd burned during the winter. She put the tools on the threshold of the old building and then kept walking up the trail. She had no idea where it led, but it was the right direction for where her mind was going. She didn't think about where that was. She didn't want to.

The trail wound up the side of the hill and around it, and Solfrid kept walking late into the night. It was in the dead of night that she crested the top of the hill and saw, on the far side, the creeping glow of fire. 

The burning summer had already started here. Perhaps the city knew; there were watch towers surrounding the harbour, on the top of every hill. Perhaps that's what the blacksmith had meant. She didn't stop at the crest, stepping over the ridge and starting down the path before her, towards the glowing fire. 

It had seemed far away when she started but, as she approached she realized it was coming towards her faster than she was going down. Her breath was lost in the back of her throat and she felt like she should scream, should start screaming and never stop but....

She wasn't afraid. She'd never been afraid. 

Something large passed her in the dark, a running shadow – deer, perhaps, or cougar. An animal that had lingered too near the fire and only just fled. 

A hand touched her on the opposite shoulder but, when she turned, Solfrid saw nothing.

“I knew you'd come,” the darkness whispered. “I missed you.”

Solfrid caught her breath and swallowed. “I'm sorry, I was scared.”

“Have you come to join me now?” 

The shadow walked in front of her. Solfrid stare at her in silence, not sure what she was here for herself. “I don't know. I wasn't ready. Did you – did you come into the city to find me?”

“Did you not want me to?”

“I wasn't ready,” Solfrid repeated. Her heart thundered in her throat.

The first sparks hit the shadow and flashed through it, the edges of the woman's form flaring with light in the darkness. Solfrid took an involuntary step forward and licked her dry lips. 

There was a loud crackle and snap from the fire before her and Solfrid could see the silhouette clearly now, the woman stepping back into the leading edge of the fire. The orange glow spread up her body and filled her out, all her curves and the length of her arms and legs, her hair rising in the currents of air streaming up from the flames.

“And now?” the elemental asked her. She stretched her arms forward, towards her, and Solfrid started forward, then hesitated. The fire was almost on top of her and she had to swallow her heart. She grabbed at the woman's hand and pulled herself into the flames before they came to her.

She expected it to hurt, to burn like she did at the forge. The woman pulled her up against her body and pressed her lips down onto hers. Solfrid's body filled with heat and she wrapped herself around the woman before her, lost in her embrace. 

She felt no pain, only the bliss to have finally found her way home.


End file.
